Saturday, 21 May 2011

Karlie Shelley and Princess Julia have taken over a cute, quaint shop on Islington's Amwell Street for a six week pop-up store. They have both contributed vintage clothes and paraphernalia to the stock and invited friends to do the same. Amidst the rails of contemporary vintage from labels Pam Hogg, Westwood, A Child Of The Jago, Margiela, Noki, Louise Gray, Superfine, Preen are also dotted isolated treasures including this coral tulle Martine Sitbon shift I discovered. Accessories are covered with a myriad of Piers Atkinson or Mich Dulce millinery and Judy Blame jewellery. The charity inititave "Retromania Vintage" have a selection of garments including a 60's psychedelic swirl print quilted ski jacket I was particularly drawn to! If you are after something to read, Maiden have curated a specialist book section. The material that excited me most are Karlie's collection of original early issues of i-D ........ some of which you can see here."The Knocking Shop" project has pooled together the family connections of London creatives to put on a rota of events to coincide with opening hours. The schedule includes "Today Is Boring" Film Screenings, "PINS" Badge Making Workshop, Life/Fashion drawing classes, 'straight ups' photography sessions for i-D Online, Scottee Art Installations , Sammy Knight Hair Dressing Salon, and celebrity shop assistant stints inc. Sue Tilley.......................... I don't think the concept of a pop-up shop has ever been pushed to this extreme of productivity! You can pop along to pick up an incredible item of early Westwood or a personalised piece of Pam Hogg originally worn by the designer herself ......... or Piers Atkinson cherries samples that may well have been sent out on shoots for certain pop princesses.

Head to Amwell Street to find out for yourself!

63 Amwell Street, London EC1R 1URFriday 20th May - Sunday 26th June 2011Friday to Sunday, 12 midday till 7pm and by appointment during the week.

(Photos: Group shot of the team including curator Princess Julia, Karlie Wearing Westwood hat and shoes, guest Christos Tolera)

Here are the two Lauren's who make up NYC electronica outfit "CREEP" with Carri Cassetteplaya who had outfitted the pair for their performance at Stag & Dagger festival. I made it down to XOYO to see their set for the first time as I just missed them at The Camden Crawl. They are playing Liverpool tonight but then jetting off for international dates, returning to the UK for Field Day in August ........... check their site for full tour details and see their latest video which premiered this week “You” ft. Nina Sky, Directed by Thalia Mavros:

Friday, 20 May 2011

Yesterday evening saw the private view of University for the Creative Art's Fashion Promotion and Imaging (FPI) BA course. The exhibtion presented a vast range of outcomes, everything from magazines and concept books to fashion film, props and marketing concepts.

With the imminent move to Kings Cross next academic year, this was the last ever show for Central St Martins in the Charing Cross building. Luckily, the talent of the BA knitwear designers gave it a great send off, as papped by knitwear aficionado Craig Lawrence.

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Since planting his flag in music video directing territories with the pioneering video for The Klaxons "Atlantis to Interzone", Ollie Evans (Partizan) has followed with clips for The Noisettes, The Gossip, Foals, Das Pop, New Young Pony Club, The Young Knives. For his latest promo, Ollie teamed up with his friend Tom Vek for the first single release from his second album "Leisure Seizure". After a six year hiatus from the music industry, "A Chore" provided the perfect opportunity to make a surprise statement with visuals, resulting in a celebrated return for Vek fans! Over recent times I have been checking in with Ollie's brilliant side project - the underground music / chat show "The Knocking Shop" with its access-all-areas insight to the bands emerging in London. The physcadelic raw energy of this production triggers nostalgia in our generation's fond memories of 1990's after hours TV entertainment. In a similar vein, Ollie taps into another distinctive chapter in the culture of candid television history for Vek's "A Chore", creating a pseudo 70's set which he explained for me:

"As fans of TV Party, Glenn O'Brien's classic cable access from late 70's New York, we both thought that it would be great to use that as a starting point for the video, with Tom playing the host of his own lo fi TV Show (Tom's initials also made this feel particularly right). We wanted to use this TV show format to act as a way to reintroduce Tom, create a mystique and try and answer some questions about where he'd been for the last 5 years.

We threw in lots of clues and symbols that have their own little slices of meaning into the video and without wanting to give too much away, express what's going on in the song, have some fun and play with people's expectations.

We shot at The New Empowering church with its perfect illuminating palm trees, something we'd really wanted to include and by chance happened on it right on our doorsteps.

Abigail Rose played an incredible Debbie Harry in the video, we found her through castings at Partizan. Before anyone came down I asked all of our potential star's to bring there favourite song with them to sing in the casting. Whilst being somewhat excruciating in parts (some of the shit we had to listen to )proved to be a great litmus test as to how well they'd fit into the video, Abi brought the best song and was the perfect for the part.

Everyone involved was great and my thanks go out to them."

I also asked Ollie to send over the story board from his treatment to explore the process which Ive selected a few pages from to show you here ......... love his illustrations!

This last shot captures Tom and Ollie in action from on set stills taken during the day by Sonia Melot (see all imagery used in this post - both colour and b/w).

Tomorrow evening Katie Eary and I will be holding a customisation class as part of the Diesel Island Project in association with i-D Magazine. Come down to Red Gallery on Redchurch Street to make your own Island accessories .......... just remember your Diesel passport to get in. You can watch filmed interviews with us both to find out more here.Full details on Facebook.

If I ever have a day off work, what I love to is go record shopping ............. as in my answer for Anna Trevelyan's interview from 2009 for which Maki took this photo of me in Flashback! This Sunday I had my first break for a long time and struck Gold in Camden finding "Doggystyle" on vinyl .......... an album which I had on Cassette when I was 13! Amazingly Snoop played in Kentish Town last night which I got to see! I can't believe how good he looks, seemingly not a day older than when I was first listening to him. If that's an advert for anti-ageing perhaps we should all be smoking the herb rather than buying herbal exfoliating face packs!!!!

Running Rainbow

Its A London Thing

My book out on September 19th

'Multi-talented Fred Butler is quite the east London renaissance girl, with fingers in so many creative pies that they're difficult to tick off.

Of course, there are the splendidly exuberant accessories, wearable sculptures whose sparkle has attracted fashion magpies such as Gaga, Bjork and Nicki Minaj. But there is also custom made prop styling, art directing and film making.